take
obstacles which would have made a far older and more experienced
hunter pause and reflect on.

Nobody, even the best-intentioned, can deny that Emperor William has
many faults; those are, however, either ignored altogether, or else
exaggerated to an extent that eclipses all his good qualities, by his
various biographers. Very few pen-portraits of royal personages that
pass through the hands of the publishers can be said to present a true
picture of their subject. Either the writer holds up the object of his
literary effort as a person so blameless as to suggest the idea that
he is an impossible prig, or else every piece of malevolent gossip is
construed into a positive fact, his shortcomings magnified until they
lose all touch of resemblance, while every word and action capable of
misrepresentation is construed in the manner most detrimental to his
reputation. In one word, he is either glorified as a preposterous
saint, or else held up to public execration as an equally impossible
villain. Now, in pic